Carabelli Multimedia

The Goods

Lumix GX8

My 4kphoto shooting small form factor mico 4/3 is the Panasonic Lumix GX8 is a workover of the GX7 which sports speedy autofocus. 5.3fps continuous shooting. Detailed high ISO images. In-body image stabilization. Tilting EVF and touch-screen. 1/8,000-second shutter. Silent electronic shutter option. Hot shoe, integrated flash.and Wi-Fi is an awesome fishing camera but it only records in 1080p 60. The Gx8 has speedier autofocus. 5.3fps continuous shooting. Detailed high ISO images. In-body image stabilization. Tilting EVF and touch-screen. 1/8,000-second shutter. Silent electronic shutter option. Hot shoe and integrated flash.and WIFI . For a non 4K shooting camera, I prefer the selfie oriented Pannasonic GF7 over the heavier GX7. The GX8 improves on the the GX7 with mission critical improved features–4k Photo and Video, a larger sensor at 20.3 megapixels, a tilt swivel screen (for those great selfies) , better lowlight higher resolution and better low light with a faster shutter all in an environmentally sealed body. For film making, it boasts dual image stabilizer and a bigger sensor for better lowlight and faster focus. Now that it is the smallest camera I own that does 4k photo, it goes with me virtually everywhere. Its also a great backup video camera for even video and photography.

Lumix GH4

4K video recording in both Cinema 4K: 4096×2160 / 24 fps, and QFHD 4K: 3840×2160 / up to 30 fps in MOV/MP4*3. Print ready high resolution 8.8 megapixel still frames can be recorded during video capture, making future proofed Hybrid Photography a reality for any photographer. [4096×2160 – 8.847MP during Cine 4K]. The 16.05-megapixel Digital Live MOS Sensor achieves high quality, high sensitivity image recording with its quick response. Superior noise reduction allows for exposures up to 60 minutes long. The Ultimate Hybrid weather-proof Camera at any price

LUMIX GF7

This little camera is the ultimate fisherman selfie camera. Not only is it designed around taking selfies, its a micro 4/3 camera that you can put removable lenses on. If it took 4k Video it would be perfect but alas it does not but it takes a very nice 1080P 60 frame video. So some of the coolest features are a timed feature that will take 3 shots after a ten second countdown. It focuses with face recognition and its super light.

The GoPros

Sessions

you can put it into a fishes mouth.

GoPro 4

GoPro 3 and +

GoPro 3D

Soloshot

This Gizmo was designed to track a surfer via Wifi from a tripod on a Beach. Its called a Soloshot. The device automatically rotates to keep your camera pointed at you from a distance automatically through a wifi arm band. Doesnt really work that great because it takes forever to link using GPS signals. They have come out with two newer models but I dont want to spend the money yet till they get all the bad reviews out of the way.

GoPro 3 BLACK

A revolution in water proof, HD, High Speed, small goodness. 30% smaller, 25% lighter and 2x times more powerful, better audio, than previous models. The most awesome things about the camera are 1080P 60fps, the absolutely cool 720P 120FPS, the 12mp photos at a rate of 30 photos per second. I see some great possibilities for the 4k 15fps in time lapse cause I sure am not buying a 4K monitor ($6000 for a 32 inch) in the near future but WOW.

The Rokinon 8mm Fish eye.

Its wrapped and under the tree this Christmas having gone on sale for $240. Thanks to www.oliviatech.com–a must link RSS feed. Also check out www.cheesycam.com

OLD STUFF

Carabelli Multimedia founded in 1984 with the advent of non linear video editing and the first commercially available medical grade digital camera made by Kodak. Since then , the quest for the best and most up to date hardware has been my passion and vice. From wedding Photography and Videography, to expert legal consulting in graphics, video evidence.

Cameras and Stuff

Having used Nikon Film cameras since the 70’s, I am biased when it comes to Nikon Glass and cameras. My principle weapons are the Nikon D7000 which according to some is the best Nikon Camera made for under $8K. The Nikon D7oo0 for me is the perfect blend of utility in that it not only shoots phenomenal stills, it does video with all my glass at High Resolutions. For pure photography, I love my full frame D700. After shooting fishing and sports videos for over 20 years, its become apparent to me that small and light equipment is key. Lately I have been shooting video with GOPRO cameras and a Panasonic Lumix GH2 with Hacked Firmware. I still occasionally use the Sanyo Xacti because of its portability and quality recording.

My first non-linear PC card was the Miro-10 on NT, back when blank CD media was $50 dollars a disk! By the advent of HD a few years ago, I was editing with Adobe Premier on a Quad Core PC with a dedicated JVC DV deck (BR-DV600UA). I use shoot a Sony VX2000, a Sony TRV900, a CanonZR, and a Sony PC10 in a waterproof case. For HD, I bought the first Canon HDV10 in San Jose and a Sony HDR-FX1000. After fiddling around with the expensive Cineform Plugins and Premier, to develop a work flow that would preserve the HD quality of the cameras, I switched over to editing with a Mac PRO eight core and Final Cut Pro Studio which in my opinion is the best way to work with HD streams specifically because of the great quality of the ProRes422 codec. That was the begining of my admiration for Apple Products. Till that day I was a die hard PC user. Now I own just about every product made by Apple on top of my PC dominant network. I also use a Mac AIR laptop in the field and an IPAD. To show our videos, we have Studio self powered DJ Speakers, a portable 130 inch wide aspect screen with a 2000 lumen HD projector for on the road

The Computers

IMAC 5K with I7 and

The Ferrari of 4k Editing in my opinion is Final Cut on a tricked out 4ghz I7 Mac Pro 5K, with 8 Gig of Ram 1 TB ssd connected to 10 TB Thunderbolt Raid enclosuer, and a usb 3 micro sd card reader.. My old silver towered Mac Pro Quad Xeon with a 4k ATI video card and monitor is ok compared to my older I7 Windows 10 PC running Premier, but there is something uniquely fast and efficient in the IMac 5K running an insane resolution of 5120-by-2880 pixels with speed in Final Cut that makes it simply the easiest and fastest all in one 4k solution on the market. I did bench the Mac Pro multi Xeon cylinder and it did beat some benchmarks of the I7 but overall, the editing experience is better in my opinion on the IMAC 5K. Once you experience the best screen I have ever seen running at speed , its hard not to dream about it in color! Editing photos with it is like working on film and watching 4k content created on it and comparing it with online content makes you appreciate how great 4k resolution really is even on a small screen. Whether it’s editing the weekly fishing report or putting together a 15 second instagram video, this machine flies and I am sure will be around till the next step above 4k comes out.

Get yourself one of these also. It seems that micoSD is the standard for GoPros and 4k Drones and after a long day of fishing, the last thing you want to do is wait 4 hours for the 20 gigs of video you just took takes to offload onto your laptop or editing computer. This is the fastest, sturdiest unit of its kind that Ive trieda bunch. The read speed is fast, up to 150 Mb/s sequential read which means less time moving data and more time recharging batteries for tomorrow.

Macbook Pro I7

2015 Macbook Pro on left. Macbook Air on right

I use to take a Macbook Air on the road with me on fishing trips. They were light and compact, fast enough to run Final Cut but it seemed I was bringing an extra external HD and a IPAD with me almost all the time for movies on the plane and to offload video and editing for editing after the trips. Turns out its actually lighter to carry a Macbook Pro with a big conventional HD than an Air with accessories. After using Macbook airs for several years, my daughter was in emergency need of an laptop after her’s died in a pool of Starbucks. I gave her mine and started using the new 2015 Macbook Pro with Retina Display. The 2015 Macbook Pro is actually thinner and lighter than its predecessors. It has more ports and it has more memory and storage than the air at the same price. The Retina display was the sell for me since now I could run a bigger desktop on the 13 inch screen. Retina is not available on the Air as of this writing mainly because of battery life issues and the limitations of the A5X chip. Granted I now carry magnifying glasses to read it, but you can see alot more on the screen with a Pro over and Air. In a side by side comparison of the Air and Pro, they are actually almost exactly the same size! In fact, the Air is slightly bigger although lighter than the 2015 Macbook Pro. I can fit the Macbook Pro in a Drone Backpack for Travel. Looks like Ive found the sweet spot for the travel laptop.

The Graveyard of Editing Machines….

Everything below this heading is old and no longer used, but it shows the evolution of computer editing power and the birth of digital non linear editing which has brought high quality video editing to the masses. Remember DVD’s? That’s so 90s.

I like using ultra portable HD Videocameras like the Xacti HD110 . These camera shoots a flavor of HD AVCHD called qPixel. This particular type of H.264 seems to very compatible with Final Cut Pro naively or with small modifications using MPEG Streamclip. The XACTI shoots to an SD card in 720p 60 frames and 1080i 30 frames and is spectacular. These files will play on a PS3 (in 1080i) right from the SD card. I could go on and on about the benefits of a Portable HD camera over larger shoulder mount cameras but I will leave that to the blog. Is that a HD camera in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Old GOPPRO

Around 2002, while surfing the break in Australia, a young surfer named Nick Woodman got an idea to build a wearable camera. His vision of a compact, wide angle, waterproof and shockproof, high quality video camera that an athlete could wear easily led to the advent of today’s most popular point of view camera–the GOPRO camera. Currently I use two of their latest cameras–the GoPro Hero and the GoPro Hero2. Both cameras are built to fit waterproof cases. They are incredibly fun to build accessories for. I use them for my underwater video and photography and they are so high quality, I have stopped using the thousands of dollars of waterproof housings for my Nikon HD dslrs and HDV cameras. Gone are the days when I use to put thousands of dollars of equipment in plastic boxes and bags risking disaster for the ultimate shot. So good are the specs on the GOPRO Hero 2, that many professionals use the cameras for backup and those really hard to get shots.

Some of my Favorite MODS for these cameras-

1. Flat lens modified housing for better focus underwater BLURFIX is the best since you can put polorizers and filter on it.

2. Specialized Booms form my Boat Mounts so that I can capture underwater video, high aerial point of view and long horizontal telescopic booms to film off my fishing rod holders.

In March of 2012, GOPRO will sell a WI-FI back for these cameras that will allow control of multiple cameras from an IPAD or IPHONE. Also, the back will allow streaming video through Wi-FI directly to a Ipad or Iphone. I am breathless with anticipation for this feature and plan several projects with Aerial RC helicopters, and underwater applications that I have only dreamed about.

AUDIO in the Field

Whenever audio is important, I like to use external audio recorders and Sync them with the video in post. The GoPro Hero 2, the Xacti, The Nikon D7000 and the Lumix GH2 all have external mics. I use Shure wireless lavalieres in the boat and on the stream but sometimes I like to record off the river and I use Tascom Digital Recorder with earplug mics or an external lavaliere. Also, I found a really cool device (on WOOT actually) –an Iphone Bluetooth Wireless Microphone made by Scosche that allows me to record onto my Iphone. Since I carry my iphone everywhere, its an awesome film tool which I depend on for On Location Notes, a Clapper App to sync audio with video, A Shot List Application, A wireless Audio Recorder, A Light Meter, and when GoPro releases it in March–a remote and a viewfinder for my camera!

HD DSLRs !

I was so jelouse when I discovered the perfection of the Canon 5D Mark II video in 2008. The evolution of hand-held digital SLR cameras has been crucial to low-budget, high quality filmmaking.

There are now lots of options and NIKON options. As of this writing Nikon has released several cameras that do 1080p video. When the Nikon D7000 was released, I was the first to line up and I managed to snag one the first week it was released. Reviews of the D700o have been very good since its release in 2009 and in my opinion, its the best bang for the buck combination DSLR for a Nikon videographer and photographer. Its a bit heavy compared to my other cameras but I can always count on it being high quality and the batteries last the longest. I dont like the fact that the screen does not rotate out and its the primary reason I bought an external 7inch HDMI monitor.

The GH2 is perhaps the coolest aqusition Carabelli Multimedia has ever snagged! What makes this so cool is the fact that a man named Vitaliy Kiselev has hacked the firmware of this camera to allow vidographers to push it’s physical limits. As it turns out, many cameras are capable of fantastic performance rivaling those of high end proffesional videocameras like the RED. The firmware is in essence often there just to “cripple” the hardware so that the more expensive cameras will sell. The physical limits of the GH2 are awesome to see, such as High ISO videopgraphy (up to 12800 iSO!) and fantastic bitrates as high as 42 MBIT (stable) in 1080P and 720P. Also 60 FPS frame rates!. This camera’s performance with the hack is nothing short of amazing–search gh2 hack on vimeo to see for yourself. You can video a star blinking with this camera. Plus there is a lens adapter that allows me to use all my nikon glass. This camera is a field videographers dream camera because of its low light performance, its small size and usability. I love the external Mic connector, the swing out screen and the fast autofocus in film mode.

There are lots of cheap and bright color corrected LED light options out today. A quick search on EBAY will bring up lots of options. I like the small SIMA lite and the cheap but effective Cowboy Studio LED with filters. They both run on batteries and are great to fill .

Stabalization

For shooting outdoors and on trout streams, I want light and compact ways to stabalize my shots.

Thanks Geoff! I use GoPros for most of the footage. I like the Gopro Blacks in 1080P 60fps with polarizing filters. Two of them-one on a telescopic mount and the other on a Scotty Rod Holder accessory for cameras. I put external batteries on them so they run continuously for 6 hours and record in “loop mode” pressing the save button after each fish or event.